Coronavirus: new cases fall closer to elusive zero

The daily number of new coronavirus cases recorded across the country is edging closer to the zero.

Queensland’s chief health officer De Jeanette Young addressing media at the end of May. Picture: News Corp Australia

The daily number of new coronavirus cases across the country is edging closer to zero, with Victoria joining the other states recording low weekend numbers.

Two COVID-19 cases were added to the national tally on Saturday and five on Sunday, taking the overall number to 7260. The national death toll remains unchanged at 102.

Fewer than 20 people are in hospital and just three remain in intensive care with the virus, two in Victoria and one in Queensland.

Without lingering concerns about whether the nationwide protest rallies over the weekend could lead to new cases, the weekend might have heralded a watershed in Australia’s battle against the disease.

Victoria reported no new cases on Saturday and although there were four on Sunday, three were returning travellers in hotel quarantine and the other was a household contact linked to a previously known outbreak at a McDonald’s outlet.

NSW recorded no new cases for the second day running, and hasn’t had a new case from a local transmission for 11 days.

The two most populous states have had more trouble than the others in reining in their coronavirus numbers, watching as the other states moved closer to eradicating the disease. Both NSW and Victoria have 70 active cases.

Queensland, Western Australia and South Australia again recorded no cases on Sunday, with Tasmania recording none on Saturday and not providing figures on Sunday. Queensland has just three active cases, South Australia none, Tasmania two and WA has 31, including 20 from the Al Kuwait livestock ship.

The ACT recorded its first case since April 25 on Sunday, a man in his 40s who had recently returned from overseas.

“The case is … a good reminder of the ongoing pandemic and the need for our community to continue to observe physical distancing and hygiene measures, and for people to stay home if they are unwell,” ACT Chief Health Officer Kerryn Coleman said.

But in a sign of how quickly COVID-19 can spread, Queensland’s Chief Health Officer, Jeanette Young, on Sunday outlined the efforts to trace the contacts of a fruit picker from Melbourne who tested positive last week.

More than 250 people had been tested following the man’s diagnosis, Dr Young said.

“We are continuing our rapid response to this case, including contact-tracing in an effort to find every person the patient had potential contact with since arriving in Queensland almost a week ago,” she said.

“These are early days and we have much more work to do before we can be confident there has been no further transmission,” Dr Young said.

Despite Victoria’s lower numbers, Deputy Chief Health Officer Annaliese van Diemen said the state’s restrictions would continue as planned.

“If we have no outbreaks in general in two weeks and if we continue to trend downwards, we will see that as a positive for a low level of community transmission,” Dr van Diemen said.

Read more: Coronavirus by the numbers